Dog Teeth
by Homicidal Whispers
Summary: Eren's got some serious anger management issues; Armin's the only one that knows how to calm him down. To some, their relationship is odd, even toxic, but they don't understand.


Armin wakes up slowly. For a moment he can't place what woke him; it's the middle of the night, after all, and Shadis's training drills leave him exhausted. But then he notices that one side of his body feels cold and that there's an empty dip in the mattress beside him and realizes what changed – Eren's not there anymore. The bed is still warm from where Eren's body had been, so he couldn't have left too long ago. He probably had to use the bathroom or something. Still, it's very telling that he has grown so accustomed to his presence that he is disturbed when he's not there.

He pushes himself upright, fingering his hair back into place absently while he waits for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. From the minimal light of the moon, he can just barely make out the rest of the boys asleep. He looks fondly at Bertholdt impossibly contorted and tangled in the sheets, Reiner cuddling a pillow clutched to his chest, Connie snoring deeply.

He decides to get a glass of water, maybe see if he can find Eren while he's out there. Armin is loathe to admit it, but he knows that it's unlikely that he'll fall asleep again without him there. He slips off of his cot and tiptoes to the door in an effort not to wake anyone, holding his breath when he coaxes the door open as if that will stop it from creaking.

He's just taken his first step past the threshold when he hears a high pitched scream, echoing down the halls. It's a girl's voice, he thinks, and she sounds terrified. He remembers Eren, not where he is meant to be, and tries not to panic or jump to any conclusions.

The rooms are usually fairly isolated from outside sound, but with the door to the room still open, the noise startles everyone else awake. Simultaneously groggy and concerned, the rest of the boys wake up. "Armin?" Jean asks. "What are you doing? What was that noise?"

"I don't know," he says. He's still clutching the handle of the door. Calm down, he tells himself. Calm down. It's alright. "It sounded like it came from the kitchen. Maybe the storeroom?"

"It sounds like someone could be in trouble. We should go check it out," Reiner says. Agreeing, everyone else gets to their feet, haphazardly pulling on their shoes and rushing out of the door. Armin's left behind, feet planted.

"Well? Come on!" Connie yells back at him. Slowly, reluctantly, Armin brings himself to move.

The kitchen looks like it's seen a war when they arrive. There's blood splattered on the walls and on the floor, tables and pots knocked over and strewn haphazardly on the floor. The remnants of last night's dinner drains steadily out of its pot and slips down the oven to meet the floor, where the brown of the meal intersperses with the red and turns murky maroon. There's a girl crouched on the floor, curled into herself, her hands clutched to her chest. She's petrified.

"Mina?" Jean says. His voice is surprisingly gentle. Armin can't tell if it's from the remnants of sleep, or if he's trying to calm her. "What happened here, Mina?"

She can't speak, but she points to the adjoined storeroom. Jean leaves Connie to comfort her and goes to pull open the door. He flips the light switch on. Armin's not close enough to see much of the interior, but there is even more blood spattered in there. Almost hysterically, he hopes that none of it got on the food.

"You filthy motherfucker!" Armin recognizes that voice. How can he not? He's heard it practically every day since he and Eren met. "Pigs like you should all just die!"

"What the hell? Eren, calm down!" Reiner and Bertholdt step forward and it takes the two of them together to pull Eren out of the room and pin him to the floor. Jean remains behind, palm pressing down onto Stein's wounds. He keeps struggling, his eyes wide and manic, disturbingly empty. He thrashes and shouts, bucking to dislodge them. He's got a dull dagger in his hand, probably pilfered from the supply room, but he has the presence of mind not to use it. "What happened here?"

Armin's seen enough to take a guess. "Stein was probably coercing Mina into something she didn't want," he says. His words are hollow with shock and, yes, with fear. "Eren was up to use the bathroom and heard the commotion."

"And so he _kills _the guy? I mean, sure, Stein was wrong, but _murder_?" Connie says. "Is that what happened, Mina?"

She hesitates before she nods. Her eyes are still wide, her body is still trembling. She doesn't glance to the storeroom where Stein lies, dying despite Jean's efforts. Her gaze is fixed firmly on Eren's still struggling body. "I'll fucking kill him!" Eren yells out and she flinches.

"We need to calm him down, _now_. I didn't want it to come to this, but we need to get Shadis. He needs to be sedated," Reiner says. "Armin, can you go get him?"

Armin steps closer instead of further away, shaking his head. "No," he says. He takes another step closer and then another until he's hovering above the tangle of limbs that is Eren, Reiner, and Bertholdt. He kneels.

"What are you doing?" Berholdt asks. He ducks one of Eren's swinging fists and grunts as he tries to pull it back underneath him.

"I can handle this," Armin says. "Let me handle this."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Jean says. "The two of them together can't get him under control. What makes you think you can?"

"I know how to handle him," he shoots back. The words are a reminder to everyone, putting a surge of confidence into his next words. Slowly he touches Eren's face, cupping the apple of his cheek in his palms. He's warm, nearing feverish. He can tell that Eren recognizes his touch, so he slowly drags his hand down, down his face and neck and shoulders, down to his wrist. Gently, he grasps the knife's blade and pulls it from between his clenched fingers. Eren resists, but Armin doesn't let up. The blade digs into his hand, slicing through tissue and he hisses through his teeth. Eren lets go. "I can deal with him," he repeats.

They hesitate for a moment longer, everyone looking to Reiner to see his decision. After a moment, he nods reluctantly. "I hope you know what you're doing," he grumbles. His hold on Eren's legs eases up and Armin slides into his vacated space. He takes Eren's arms from Betholdt and pins them down by his head.

"Hey," he says. "Eren, it's done. Stein won't hurt anyone anymore. Mina's safe, see? You're scaring her. You're scaring me, too."

"Armin," he says. It's the first thing he's said that's not about Stein so far. Armin counts that as a victory. "Get off of me." He's stiller than he'd been with the others, but he hasn't given up entirely, shifting and restless like a spooked animal, testing for weaknesses. But, not for nothing, the ruthless military training has given Armin balance and strength that he hadn't had before. Armin moves just a bit, so he's sitting on Eren's stomach instead of boxing him in with his knees. It's a calculated risk, as it leaves Eren's legs free, but Armin thinks it will be work it.

"Look at me," he says. He lowers his head until their foreheads touch, until their eyelashes brush each time they blink, until their breath puffs into the other's face with each exhale. Eren's got no choice but to look at him now, or keep his eyes shut. There's blood on Eren's face, staining his lips and flecking his cheeks. It's already starting to dry and flake. Armin lets go of his hands and trails them slowly back up his body until they frame his face. "You're stronger than I am. You could get free if you wanted to." He says the words quietly, directly into Eren's ears. It's for the two of them alone.

"You can easily get free," he says. "but you'd have to hurt me. You can hurt me, if you want to."

"I don't want to hurt you," Eren hisses.

"But you want to hurt Stein," Armin says, the words airy and undeniably factual. "You could hurt me like you want to hurt him. You'll have to, in fact."

"I'm not going to hurt you!" he repeats. The words come out loud, too loud. Armin can feel the boys staring at the back of his neck. They're shifting, getting on their guard in case Armin's plan doesn't work. He doesn't spare them a glance. It'll work.

"So what will you do then? It's either you hurt both of us, Stein and me, or neither."

They're pressed close enough that Armin can feel Eren take a deep breath, his gut contracting and expanding. His hands go to Armin's head suddenly. Armin hears the floorboard creak as someone lurches forward – Reiner probably, or maybe Jean – but Eren doesn't do anything more. He just lets his hands rest there, lets his fingers stroke through blonde hair. There's just the faintest amount of pressure, but Armin lets himself sink even further down. Their lips brush. It's only a whisper, really, innocent and chaste. There's only the faintest hint of sensations and a strange tingling of breath intertwined. It feels unbearably intimate and the tension in the room rises several degrees. They remain like that and it anchors Eren as he slowly, slowly, slowly forces himself to be calm.

"I'm good," he says eventually.

"How do I know you won't go after him again?" Armin challenges. Armin already knows it. It's evident in the warmth in his green eyes, the subtle upward twitch of his lips as he looks back at Armin. Still, he wants to hear the reply.

Eren 's palm leaves his face and falls to his hips, curling around the bone absently, easily. "I promise," he says solemnly. Armin smiles and shifts back, letting him up. Eren swings himself to his feet and offers a hand to help Armin up also. He walks past the boys in the room, ignoring the way they stiffen as he passes, and goes straight to Mina. He crouches down a good distance away and pitches his voice soft so as not to startle her.

"I'm sorry," he says and it's clear that the words are sincere. "I should've let you handle that yourself. You went through the same training I did, you're strong – strong enough to stand up for yourself. I shouldn't have intervened. I went overboard."

"Yes, you did," Mina says. It's not much, but it's a start. She pulls herself to stand with Connie's assistance. Eren remains submissively close to the ground, forced to look up to see her. "It would've been alright." She doesn't say much else, just murmurs something incomprehensible and takes her leave.

After she's gone, Eren speaks again. "That guy, you called him Stein. Who is he?"

"You don't even know?" Reiner asks. "He's one of the youngest members of the staff, not terribly important. Still, you'll be in a lot of trouble."

"Is he okay?"

"He'll live," Jean tells him. "But he's not in good shape and I doubt he ever will be. He'll probably get sent to the developmental areas." Eren nods. He looks weary and worn. They all do.

"For now, let's just go back to bed. We can report this whole thing in the morning, alright?" Bertholdt offers. It's the only idea out there, so they agree. Eren looks tense on the walk back, lagging behind the others who try hard to look as if they're not watching him. Armin falls back and scoops up his hand, twining their fingers. Eren grants him a small smile.

"You should go to your own bed. I don't think you should be sleeping next to him tonight," Jean says when they're back in the room. It's a subject the others have obviously been considering, but were unwilling to speak up about. Eren knows which battles to pick and he knows tonight was a monumental mess up. He looks away, but his grip on Armin tightens.

"It's fine," he replies. "Eren won't hurt me and I won't hear anything else about it." They're displeased about it, but Armin can be just as stubborn as his best friends when he puts his mind to it. He falls asleep curled up into Eren's warmth, still just a bit warmer than average.

"Have you visited him?" Connie asks. He's talking about Eren, of course. As agreed, Shadis had been informed about the events of the previous night. After listening to Mina's account of the story and comparing it to Armin's, Eren was given three days of incarceration and another week of solitary kitchen duty. Considering he had disabled a man for life, he had gotten off easily.

"Yes, once before breakfast and again during lunch," he says. He answers mostly because he can't find a reason not to.

Connie nods. "Me and the others did too – during that morning break. He said he's sorry again. He said we deserved an explanation, and to ask you about it." Armin hesitates, unwilling to speak. There's a chance Connie could be making it up out of curiosity. He won't betray Eren's trust. "He said it had something to do with Mikasa," Connie prompts.

If he knows that, then there's no doubt that Eren had said it. Still, he fiddles with his fork for a minute. He glances to Mikasa; she's just as involved in the story after all, but she nods her permission. Armin gestures for them to form a tighter circle so no one else can over hear.

He doesn't feel comfortable telling the whole story; it's too personal. Mikasa's past is her own to share, just as Eren's transgressions are his alone. Instead, he gives an abridged version of the story. He explains that when Eren and Mikasa first met, they ended up killing three men together. "Eren's always had a bit of a temper problem," he says and at least two people snort at the understatement.

"I didn't know you knew Eren before Mikasa did," Jean notes. "How did you react when he told you what happened?"

"It's not like it's a contest. Most people make their assumptions and neither of us never really sees a point in correcting them," he says. "And, it's like I said. Eren always had anger issues. That was the first time someone died, but it wasn't the first time something like that happened. I knew how to get through to him."

"So why did you seem so scared, then? You seemed even more wigged out than we were, but you should be used to it by now." Connie says.

Armin hesitates again, but they crowd closer, staring at him expectantly. These are the people he trusts, the same faces that he'll be seeing every day at least until training ends and maybe beyond then. "The first I saw it happen, it was because some kids were bullying me. I got into trouble like that a lot back then," he admits. "Eren found me and he just – he flew into a rage like I'd never seen before. He literally bit the kid's ear off. He wouldn't calm down, he was scaring me, and I didn't know what to do."

"What _did_ you do?"

Armin looks down at his hands. He remembers what happened all too clearly; Eren looking at him with blood dripping from his mouth, the kid's hysterical crying in the distance as his friends tried to carry him away; Armin tugging on his arm to keep him from chasing after them. There were no adults nearby to go to for help, there houses were too far away to get there quickly. "I tried to calm him down, just like you saw yesterday. It didn't work at first."

_"Armin? Armin! Are you okay? I won't do it again, I swear, I'll never do it again! I'll never hurt you again._"

Armin straightens up, wrenching himself out of his memories. He finds himself absently stroking his wrist and can't remember when he started the motion. "He broke my wrist. I screamed. He snapped out of it and it never happened again." He says it matter-of-fact, succinct. He wants to get as far away from those memories as he can, dissociate himself from them. He doesn't look anyone in the eye.

There's a long silence after he reveals that before Connie whistles. "Aren't you two, like, together or something? How could you even talk to him after that?"

Armin doesn't say that he and Eren had already known each other for years at that point. He doesn't say that Eren was his only friend at that age, that he'd been his only friend until Mikasa showed up and brought the total number to two. Instead, he shrugs. "He learned from it. Like I said, it hasn't happened again and it won't. He made me a promise and Eren doesn't make promises that he won't keep."

"That's fucked up, man," Jean says.

"That's your prerogative," he answers. He doesn't try to explain himself because the fact is they won't understand. Their relationship probably seems monstrously unequal to others, even toxic, but they don't get it. Eren and he have always been on equal footing with each other. Eren needs Armin just as much as Armin needs him. It's not abusive, either – there was a mistake that one time, but it has never come even close to happening ever again. Just like last night, Eren will always settle at his presence.

He stands, interrupting the somber silence of the table, and drops his tray off at the appropriate bin. "I'm going to go see him, again," he announces. He doesn't have to say that no one else is invited to come for them to know.

Even at his meandering pace, it doesn't take him too long to reach the place where Eren's being held. It's a tiny unused room, not much bigger than a storage room. There's a guard stationed outside the door but he snorts when he sees Armin. "You again? Whatever, just go in. I'll give you twenty minutes."

Hastily, he thanks the man as he unlocks the door and ushers Armin inside, letting the door lock once he's inside. Eren's asleep, he sees, curled up on the floor. It's probably boredom rather than actual fatigue, so Armin doesn't feel bad nudging him awake.

"Armin?" he asks before he's properly awake. He blinks up blearily at him and Armin smiles.

"Yes," he says. Eren makes a grabby motion so Armin lets himself sink to his knees and crawl into the space next to him. The floor's cold and hard and dusty, but Eren rolls over and puts his weight on top of him. He cuddles Armin closer into his body, tangling their limbs and breathing onto his neck and the discomfort is suddenly so much easier to bear. "Your feet are cold," he complains.

Eren pointedly squirms his toes and Armin can't help but laugh a little. "I'm sorry, Armin," Eren says. "You know that, don't you?"

"Of course I know," he says teasingly. "You keep saying it. You won't let me forget."

Eren touches him like he's something precious, like he's something worth keeping. Armin lets him cup and angle his face until their lips meet. They've kissed before, and they've made out before, but this isn't that. This is the same as last night – a gentle sharing of air and body and space; a promise. It's a reaffirmation of a promise that Armin knows will be kept.

-/-

The piece I was working on is taking forever to finish itself up, so I banged this out quickly to motivate myself. Does this count as yandere, guys?


End file.
